Latest Planetary geology Stories
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Working with colleagues from NASA, a Florida State University researcher has published a paper that calls into question three decades of conventional wisdom regarding some of the physical processes that helped shape the Earth as we know it today.Munir Humayun, an associate professor in FSU's Department of Geological Sciences and a researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, co-authored a paper, "Partitioning of Palladium at High Pressures and Temperatures...
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has approved new names for features on Mercury and agreed on a new theme for fossae on the planet. These newly christened features were discovered from images taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft during its first flyby of Mercury in January.The IAU is the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to surface features on celestial bodies. "We are very pleased with how quickly the IAU has responded to the need to name many of the...
A large object may have struck northwest Scotland almost 1.2 billion years ago, according to researchers from Oxford and Aberdeen universities.By studying the impact, researchers reported that it was Landing just shy of present-day Ullapool, the meteorite is reported to be the largest ever to hit Britain, researchers said in the journal Geology. "If there had been human observers in Scotland 1.2 billion years ago, they would have seen quite a show," said co-author Ken Amor, from the...
Mars has an ethereal, tenuous atmosphere at less than 1 percent the surface pressure of Earth, so scientists working on The University of Arizona's High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE, are challenged to explain the complex, wind-sculpted landforms they're now seeing in unprecedented detail.The HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the most powerful camera to orbit another planet, can see 20-inch-diameter features while flying at about 7,500 mph between 155 and 196...
When Mars was still young, more than four billion years ago, a large asteroid sailed out of the sky and slammed into an area known today as western Arabia Terra. The object hit hard enough that it blasted a basin at least 280 kilometers (175 miles) wide. The basin is now named Aram Chaos. As many millions of years passed, into this yawning bowl drifted sediments of many kinds - wind-blown dust, sand, and volcanic ash. The Martian climate was wetter then, so the crater-filling debris became...
The radar system on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has uncovered new details about some of the most mysterious deposits on Mars: the Medusae Fossae Formation. It has provided the first direct measurement of the depth and electrical properties of these materials, providing new clues about their origin. The Medusae Fossae Formation consists of enigmatic deposits. Found near the Martian equator along a divide between highlands and lowlands, they may represent some of the...
As the fragments of shattered comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3 glide harmlessly past Earth this month in full view of backyard telescopes, onlookers can't help but wonder, what if a comet like that didn't miss, but actually hit our planet?For the answer to that question, we look to the Sahara desert. In a remote windswept area named Aorounga, in Chad, there are three craters in a row, each about 10 km in diameter. "We believe this is a 'crater chain' formed by the impact of a fragmented...
Could Earth have had an even more violent infancy than previously imagined? New isotope data suggest that the Earth not only had a very violent beginning but also point to new information about our planet's chemical evolution. New and precise measurements of a neodymium isotope ratio (142Nd/144Nd) led Maud Boyet and Rick Carlson of Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism to the discovery that all terrestrial rocks have an excess of 142Nd compared to the expected building...
ESA -- These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show the 'chaotic' terrain of the Aureum Chaos region on Mars.The HRSC obtained these images during orbit 456 with a resolution of approximately 25 metres per pixel. The scenes show an area located at about 3º South and 335º East. Aureum Chaos is located in the eastern part of Valles Marineris, south-west of the 280 kilometre-wide impact crater Aram Chaos. Like this impact...
Latest Planetary geology Reference Libraries
Harrison Schmitt was a NASA astronaut, and is also an American geologist. He was born Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt on July 3, 1935 in Santa Rita, New Mexico. After high school, he went to the California Institute of Technology and received a B.S. degree in science in 1957. He then went to Norway to study geology at the University of Oslo. In 1964, Schmitt earned a Ph.D. in geology from Harvard University. After receiving his doctorate, he worked at the U.S. Geological Survey's...
The Planet Venus -- in astronomy, 2d planet from the sun; it is often called the evening star or morning star and is brighter than any object in the sky except the sun and the moon. Because its orbit lies between the sun and the orbit of the earth, Venus passes through phases like those of the moon, varying from a large bright crescent when the planet is near inferior conjunction (nearest the earth) to a smaller silvery disk when it is at superior conjunction (farthest from the earth)....
